Mumbai snuck up on me. I hadn't heard it until that Taj Mahal Hotel terrorist attack in 2008.
Wikipedia says the Capital Beltway's Cabin John Bridge's name was officially changed to American Legion Memorial Bridge in 1969, but no one used the new name for well over a decade.
Yeah, the problem shared by those renamings is that the old names entail the bridge's location, thus making them far more useful. Which is why people still refer to them that way in my experience--perhaps more so in the case of the Triboro, as the Cuomo Bridge is actually a new structure... Cf the formerly Queensboro (or colloquially, 59th Street) Bridge, now renamed for Ed Koch. The whole business is pretty annoying.
I'm a bit suspicious of 20th or 21st century anthropologists determining the "correct" form of speech for languages that had no written form and have largely fallen out of use. There are many fact checkers looking for work, I'm told.
I grew up a Redskins fan. John Riggins' 42 yard touchdown run on 4th and 1 in Super Bowl 17 was the greatest sports moment of my life. I don't watch sports any longer and don't really care about the name change from Redskins to Commanders but I do know that most Washingtonians with deep roots- not very many- call them the Redskins.
And all the other name changes. Bombay to Mumbai. Ceylon to Sri Lanka. Upper Volta to Burkino Faso. Dahomey to Benin. Saigon to Ho Chi Minh City- most Vietnamese in the south still call it Saigon. Burma to Myanmar. I refuse to get on the name-change train.
I so wish "The Commies" nickname would catch on, but it's too on the nose, like the Dems being the Red party. I vaguely remember the Senators being called "The Nats" in the WaPoo and not knowing why.
I actually kind of dig this. As a proper American I am mostly ignorant of world geography. Why should I know the capitol or location or even existence of your puny country? If it were important, I'm certain we'd have a military base there and I'd assume they were monitoring anything significant. If you have an interesting cuisine, you are welcome to open a restaurant in my proper American city and I might try it someday.
I lived on an Indian reservation for a time, and all of them called themselves "Indians." They regarded "Native American" as a sort of curiosity invented by the white man.
The Gulf of Mexico thing is a bit absurd to be honest and reminds me of the "freedom fries" branding attempt, God help us. The renaming of Mt. McKinley makes a bit more sense - obviously the park already honors the original name, and Obama clearly made the change as a sop to the land acknowledgement/identity politics crowd. Frankly if you polled people about what the term "Denali" means to them it's most common association is with a higher trim and large SUV.
I do find the constant renaming of sports venues (and to a lesser extent performing arts venues) after various sponsors pretty annoying. They have no sense of place and so when I hear them announced most of the time I have no idea what city or perhaps even sport is being discussed, so I wonder how truly effective they are from a marketing standpoint.
Well ya see, in America we call Belgian Pomme Frites, 'french fries', never mind why...we assume you guys take a certain amount of national pride in the fact that we include 'French' anything in our diet, so it probably hits pretty hard that we will no longer be doing so.
It became and instant punchline and it's rather perverted in retrospect as it was in support of the invasion of Iraq, one of the biggest lies and foreign policy mistakes in modern history.
Foreign policy mistake certainly but what was the lie? They invaded because the inspectors were being thwarted and I recall we had the right to enforce that as part of the ending agreement for gulf I. It was only later that we learned the thwarting was to keep up appearances that he might have the program still. I think the Iraqis alleged that the US knew this all along, but did we?
This reminds of when the Superdome in New Orleans lost the sponsorship of Mercedes-Benz ( that went to Atlanta ). The first front runner for the new sponsorship was Porn Hub, unfortunately it went to Caesars. Just think of the potential giggles, when the TV announcers would have to start a broadcast " Now, coming to you from the Porn Hub Superdome...the Saints are....."
He could rename the Panama Canal as the Eerie Canal and take advantage of the ensuing confusion to re-acquire it.
Is not a big part of this that thing that the most irritating sort of world traveller does, i.e. forever telling ignorant tourists (such as you) how the natives really do it?
On the second or maybe third season of the MTV show 'The Real World' they had a medical student who was of the Mongoloid race (which is apparently what we used to call Orientals before we also started calling Down Syndrome 'Mongoloid', thus the amazing Devo song). In one scene she told how someone had recently explained to her that 'oriental' should only be used to refer to objects such as rugs, while 'Asian' was correct for people.
I thought, if someone has to explain to you why you should be offended by something, maybe just chill?
The virtue-signaling status games white liberals play among themselves are of no interest or benefit to the people they're talking about, as with Indians now being called "Native Americans" or, heaven help us, Canadians dubbing them "First Nations Peoples" and starting every public gathering with a "Land Acknowledgment" as if it were the Lord's Prayer.
As for Trump, I'm with him as far as Mt. McKinley but not on "Gulf of America."
These name changes are due to some fruitcake journalist or an activist who's trying to get a following. Journalists mis-use words constantly. The one that drives me nuts is referring to airport parking ramps as "Tarmac" when Tarmac has NEVER been used in airfield construction.
I've been hearing about San and Khoi and Inuit lately, and really could have used a Woke-to-English dictionary for some of these names. Apparently, I am many years out of date now.
Confucius wrote that, "If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success." The doctrine of the rectification of names was subsequently used by various Chines and Roman emperors to justify their renaming everything after themselves upon ascending to power. This doctrine, in various forms, has been used by the French Revolutionaries in creating a new calendar, the Soviets in renaming most of the Russian cities, and the Democratic Party in renaming and/or destroying anything referring to the Confederate States of America.
Mumbai snuck up on me. I hadn't heard it until that Taj Mahal Hotel terrorist attack in 2008.
Wikipedia says the Capital Beltway's Cabin John Bridge's name was officially changed to American Legion Memorial Bridge in 1969, but no one used the new name for well over a decade.
Don't get me started on the Tappan Zee now being the "Mario Cuomo" bridge. Or the Triborough the "RFK" bridge.
I'm still waiting for the Woodrow Wilson Bridge to be renamed due to Woody's "racism."
Yeah, the problem shared by those renamings is that the old names entail the bridge's location, thus making them far more useful. Which is why people still refer to them that way in my experience--perhaps more so in the case of the Triboro, as the Cuomo Bridge is actually a new structure... Cf the formerly Queensboro (or colloquially, 59th Street) Bridge, now renamed for Ed Koch. The whole business is pretty annoying.
Koch? That's so groovy!
I think Mayor Koch was post-groovy. Maybe the young Congressman Koch was a little groovy...
It was an allusion to the 59th Street Bridge song by S&G, something else not known by its title.
And don't forget that the Battery Park Tunnel is now the "Hugh L. Carey Tunnel."
I'm a bit suspicious of 20th or 21st century anthropologists determining the "correct" form of speech for languages that had no written form and have largely fallen out of use. There are many fact checkers looking for work, I'm told.
I grew up a Redskins fan. John Riggins' 42 yard touchdown run on 4th and 1 in Super Bowl 17 was the greatest sports moment of my life. I don't watch sports any longer and don't really care about the name change from Redskins to Commanders but I do know that most Washingtonians with deep roots- not very many- call them the Redskins.
And all the other name changes. Bombay to Mumbai. Ceylon to Sri Lanka. Upper Volta to Burkino Faso. Dahomey to Benin. Saigon to Ho Chi Minh City- most Vietnamese in the south still call it Saigon. Burma to Myanmar. I refuse to get on the name-change train.
I so wish "The Commies" nickname would catch on, but it's too on the nose, like the Dems being the Red party. I vaguely remember the Senators being called "The Nats" in the WaPoo and not knowing why.
I call them the Commies just to anger the lefties.
I actually kind of dig this. As a proper American I am mostly ignorant of world geography. Why should I know the capitol or location or even existence of your puny country? If it were important, I'm certain we'd have a military base there and I'd assume they were monitoring anything significant. If you have an interesting cuisine, you are welcome to open a restaurant in my proper American city and I might try it someday.
So yeah change your names as often as you like.
By 'your' obviously I don't mean Derek.
Name changes are useful for utopian schemes. A project to build a western democracy in Mesopotamia sounds obviously doomed. Iraq, however…
It was doomed under any name.
In the Inferno, Dante mentions the belief that Florence had been cursed by changing its patron from Mars, god of war, to John the Baptist:
“I of that city was which to the Baptist
Changed its first patron, wherefore he for this
Forever with his art will make it sad.”
I lived on an Indian reservation for a time, and all of them called themselves "Indians." They regarded "Native American" as a sort of curiosity invented by the white man.
Tappan Zee, Triboro, 6th Avenue, Idlewild…
59th Street Bridge - they're trying to rename that one, too
I grew up next to it...what do they want to call it?
The Edward I. Koch Bridge. I think they officially changed it in 2011.
You have to admit that "Gulf of America" is a troll for the ages.
He should have started with 'Trump Gulf of America LLC' and negotiated down to 'Gulf of America'
The Gulf of Mexico thing is a bit absurd to be honest and reminds me of the "freedom fries" branding attempt, God help us. The renaming of Mt. McKinley makes a bit more sense - obviously the park already honors the original name, and Obama clearly made the change as a sop to the land acknowledgement/identity politics crowd. Frankly if you polled people about what the term "Denali" means to them it's most common association is with a higher trim and large SUV.
I do find the constant renaming of sports venues (and to a lesser extent performing arts venues) after various sponsors pretty annoying. They have no sense of place and so when I hear them announced most of the time I have no idea what city or perhaps even sport is being discussed, so I wonder how truly effective they are from a marketing standpoint.
The hilarious thing about 'freedom fries' was imagining the average Frenchman trying to puzzle out why Americans considered it a sick burn.
"Maintenant, le nom des frites est 'Freedom Fries'? Pourquoi?"
Well ya see, in America we call Belgian Pomme Frites, 'french fries', never mind why...we assume you guys take a certain amount of national pride in the fact that we include 'French' anything in our diet, so it probably hits pretty hard that we will no longer be doing so.
It became and instant punchline and it's rather perverted in retrospect as it was in support of the invasion of Iraq, one of the biggest lies and foreign policy mistakes in modern history.
Foreign policy mistake certainly but what was the lie? They invaded because the inspectors were being thwarted and I recall we had the right to enforce that as part of the ending agreement for gulf I. It was only later that we learned the thwarting was to keep up appearances that he might have the program still. I think the Iraqis alleged that the US knew this all along, but did we?
This reminds of when the Superdome in New Orleans lost the sponsorship of Mercedes-Benz ( that went to Atlanta ). The first front runner for the new sponsorship was Porn Hub, unfortunately it went to Caesars. Just think of the potential giggles, when the TV announcers would have to start a broadcast " Now, coming to you from the Porn Hub Superdome...the Saints are....."
He could rename the Panama Canal as the Eerie Canal and take advantage of the ensuing confusion to re-acquire it.
Is not a big part of this that thing that the most irritating sort of world traveller does, i.e. forever telling ignorant tourists (such as you) how the natives really do it?
On the second or maybe third season of the MTV show 'The Real World' they had a medical student who was of the Mongoloid race (which is apparently what we used to call Orientals before we also started calling Down Syndrome 'Mongoloid', thus the amazing Devo song). In one scene she told how someone had recently explained to her that 'oriental' should only be used to refer to objects such as rugs, while 'Asian' was correct for people.
I thought, if someone has to explain to you why you should be offended by something, maybe just chill?
The virtue-signaling status games white liberals play among themselves are of no interest or benefit to the people they're talking about, as with Indians now being called "Native Americans" or, heaven help us, Canadians dubbing them "First Nations Peoples" and starting every public gathering with a "Land Acknowledgment" as if it were the Lord's Prayer.
As for Trump, I'm with him as far as Mt. McKinley but not on "Gulf of America."
Land acknowledgments are spreading to the US. Harvard has one, for example.
These name changes are due to some fruitcake journalist or an activist who's trying to get a following. Journalists mis-use words constantly. The one that drives me nuts is referring to airport parking ramps as "Tarmac" when Tarmac has NEVER been used in airfield construction.
How many native languages were there in Alaska? How many of them called it something other than Denali? I’ll bet all but one.
It’s like the old TV ad, “You call it corn. We called it maize.” All of the hundreds of different indigenous languages? Sure.
So THAT's where the Hottentots went!
I've been hearing about San and Khoi and Inuit lately, and really could have used a Woke-to-English dictionary for some of these names. Apparently, I am many years out of date now.
Confucius wrote that, "If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success." The doctrine of the rectification of names was subsequently used by various Chines and Roman emperors to justify their renaming everything after themselves upon ascending to power. This doctrine, in various forms, has been used by the French Revolutionaries in creating a new calendar, the Soviets in renaming most of the Russian cities, and the Democratic Party in renaming and/or destroying anything referring to the Confederate States of America.
No, some of us won't be forced to join goodspeaking Progressives as they run ever-so-virtuously on the 𝙚𝙪𝙥𝙝𝙚𝙢𝙞𝙨𝙢 𝙩𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙢𝙞𝙡𝙡. [1]
Ref.
[1] "𝘛𝘰 𝘢 𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘶𝘪𝘴𝘵, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘩𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘳: 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘶𝘱𝘩𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘮 𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘭. 𝘗𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘯𝘦𝘸 "𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘦" 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘭𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘯 𝘰𝘳 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘶𝘱𝘩𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘮 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘤𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘯𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴. "𝘞𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘵" 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 "𝘵𝘰𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘵" (𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘢 𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘮 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦, 𝘢𝘴 𝘪𝘯 "𝘵𝘰𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘵 𝘬𝘪𝘵"), 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 "𝘣𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘮," 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 "𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘮," 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 "𝘭𝘢𝘷𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺." … 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘶𝘱𝘩𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘮 𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘸𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵𝘴, 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴, 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘨𝘦. 𝘎𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵 𝘢 𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘯𝘢𝘮𝘦, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵; 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘢𝘮𝘦. (𝘞𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘸𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘶𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘯𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘺 𝘱𝘶𝘵.)"; https://libquotes.com/steven-pinker/quote/lbx5g8a, 1994_04_03_newyorktimes.pdf (stevenpinker.com)